SportsLine ran the 2026 NFL season 10,000 times, and the model's full rankings are out, complete with sleepers, breakouts and busts for your draft prep. If that model name sounds familiar around here, it should. It's the same simulation that flagged Terry McLaurin's down season last year, and the one that called Daniel Jones' big year before anyone wanted to hear it. I covered its 2026 bust list two days ago, so consider this the other half of the picture.

The pitch is simple: 10,000 simulated seasons smooth out the noise that one bad box score or one viral camp clip creates. A guy who scores twice in a preseason game doesn't move a model. He moves your league's draft board about three rounds, which is exactly the problem.

One thing I keep coming back to: the model's sleepers tend to share a profile, real volume with murky hype. Players whose snap counts or target shares were already climbing late last year, but who never got the offseason headline treatment. That's usually where the profit margin lives. When everybody in your draft room knows a name, you pay retail for it. When only the spreadsheet knows, you get a discount.

The bust side is less fun but more valuable. The model's historical hits, Jones, McLaurin, and a few others, came from the same tell: a player being drafted off a career-best outlier that the underlying numbers never supported. One monster efficiency season with no volume growth behind it is a trap, not a breakout. I've been beating this drum since the 8th and the simulations agree with me, which is convenient but also correct.

Ray Delgado would tell you to just watch the games and trust your eyes. And Ray, if you're reading this, the model literally agrees with your eyeballs half the time, it just does it in March instead of November. Deb would add that there's a human attached to every projection, which is fair, and why I never treat a simulation as gospel. It's a tiebreaker for picks I'm already leaning toward, not a substitute for knowing why a guy is getting the ball.

Practical takeaway for your drafts this weekend: cross-check your first five picks against the model's bust list before you're on the clock, and mine the sleeper tier for your round 8 through 12 darts. That late-round range is where leagues are actually won. Anyone can take the consensus RB in round 2.

So what's your plan, are you fading anyone the model loves? I'll be tracking my own calls from this piece all season, wins and losses, because the receipts are the whole point. Ask me about my 2024 tight end fades sometime. Actually, don't.